Students get a Grip on true leadership
By school captains Georgina Stone and Jamie Brose, St Rita’s School Babinda
ON February 5, the school and sports captains of St Rita’s School Babinda were registered to attend the Grip Leadership Conference 2018 at the Pullman Reef Hotel Casino in Cairns.
Arriving at the casino, we negotiated our way around deep puddles. Luckily, the rain had just stopped.
Our principal, Mrs Billiau, greeted us at the front door and took the five of us – Harrison, Max, Jamie, Hallie and Georgina – through to the conference room.
A member of the Grip Leadership team showed us to our seats.
The room was filled with chairs.
The area was buzzing with lots of excited, hyped-up children arriving from a number of regional schools to participate in the day’s activities.
Once we were all seated, the presenters started the first session.
We learnt how we are all like Transformers.
We can transform our minds and hearts to lead and to help people in need. We need to lead from the inside and the outside.
We are agents for change and each of us can make a difference.
More fun was had during the “loud noises” segment. Everyone in the room was on their feet and dancing.
We learnt that it’s OK to stand up to do what is right. This was our favourite part of the conference.
After morning tea, we learnt about different types of leaders.
We are either “strawberry” or “watermelon” leaders.
Strawberry leaders show their leadership through their words and actions.
They are similar on the inside to the outside.
Watermelon leaders are different in their actions and words. They are not the same on the inside as they are on the outside.
We hope to be strawberry leaders throughout the year.
All too soon it was time to leave. With Grip badges on our shirts, we reflected on what we had all learnt during the day’s enjoyable and actionwas packed sessions. We all talked excitedly about ideas to improve our wonderful small school during 2018.
We have been inspired to make a positive impact on the junior students of our school and we look forward to developing our leadership skills and using them to make a positive difference in our community.